


Circumference

by Arlessiar



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Couch Cuddles, Domestic Bliss, Fluff, Hartwin, M/M, Moving In Together, kingsman secret santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlessiar/pseuds/Arlessiar
Summary: It's almost Christmas, and moving in together shouldn't be a big deal. It's a question and a decision. Plain and simple.





	Circumference

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withinmelove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withinmelove/gifts).



> This is coming so late, I'm so sorry that it took me so long to write this. It was supposed to become a drabble - I should have known that this plan wouldn't work out as the story developed a life of its own as usual. ^^ 
> 
> Here it is now, and I hope you like it, [withinmelove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withinmelove/profile)!  
> Your prompt included Hartwin, fluff, cuddling, domestic scenes and a holiday like Christmas. This is what my brain came up with. It's definitely fluffy. :)

~*~

Eggsy moves into Harry’s house a week before Christmas, turning ‘his’ into ‘theirs’ with one step and a smile.

There were no long days of planning. There were no discussions about pros and cons before. The whole process is more of a natural progression of things. A question and a decision. Plain and simple.

 

A few days before Eggsy crams his belongings into one suitcase and five boxes, there’s dinner. Dinner at Harry’s place, as so often lately, and it’s not even fancy, it’s just bangers and mash, but the gravy comes in a gravy boat and there’s, as always, china and silverware. It’s a striking contrast and it gets Eggsy every time. 

Afterwards, when Eggsy is so full that he cannot even nibble on one of Harry’s extraordinary mince pies anymore, they watch a film together. They’re sitting on the sofa in the living-room, Eggsy half-lying on his side with his socked feet up on the cushions, snuggled up against Harry’s side, Harry’s right arm around Eggsy’s shoulders, keeping him close. There’s a fire roaring in the fireplace and Eggsy’s wearing a comfy powder-blue sweater, but he knows that he’d be feeling toasty warm by that embrace alone. With the left side of his face practically buried in Harry’s soft cardigan, Eggsy can feel the pattern of the fabric shaping his skin like an engraving. It almost hurts after a while but he doesn’t move, not minding one bit that it will leave an imprint that will stay for some time, like a temporary mark of belonging, and seriously, Eggsy thinks, that thought really shouldn’t have the effect it does have on certain lower parts of his anatomy.  
He’s breathing in the distinct smell of wool fibres and Kingsman’s Eau de Parfum, the fragrance weirdly foreign and yet so familiar, changed and merged into a unique mix by Harry’s body heat and his very own skin’s scent. The film? Eggsy barely remembers it later. Pressed so close to Harry’s chest, he can hear the other man’s breathing, a low-pitched and hollow sound, regular and soothing, and Eggsy’s slowly getting lost in their closeness and in the comfort of a dimly lit room, freshly baked pastries on the table and a snoring pug at his feet.

They stay like that during the whole film, neither Harry nor Eggsy moving an inch, not even when the credits begin to roll, as if a bubble of contentment is surrounding them on this chilly December evening that both of them can sense and neither wants to burst. When the DVD player returns to the main menu and its endless but blessedly soundless loop, they keep staring at the TV, until Harry’s voice breaks the media- and bliss-induced hypnosis.

“Move in with me.”

The words fall into the silence like a stone into a pond, and the waves hit Eggsy a few seconds later. He looks up at Harry then, not moving from his comfortable place at Harry’s side but just catching Harry’s eyes when the other man looks down at him expectantly. He doesn’t say anything, he cannot just yet, and the questions must be visible in the way he stares at the face of his human pillow, because Harry starts to explain his reasons immediately.

“You practically live here anyway. After work we come here together more often than not. The stains in the sink are from your toothpaste, not mine. You always know where my slippers are, at least on the days on which JB doesn’t play with them. I iron your absurdly yet enticingly tight trousers. You like and compliment my cooking – thank you for that by the way. When you stay the night, you put my vitamin pills right next to my plate in the morning to make sure I take them. I got rid of the Japanese hardwood fish sculpture in the hallway because it scared you in the middle of the night when you went to get some water. You talk to Mr. Pickle when you’re in the bathroom. My premium Derek Rose underwear willingly shares a drawer with your ridiculous Calvin Klein briefs. Your dog has his own pillow in my office. I have a high chair for your sister in my dining room and I step on a Lego brick on a weekly basis. Some of your weapons are stowed away in my closet. You gave me an Ornithoptera Chimaera for my birthday and suggested the perfect spot for it on the wall. Eggsy… you spend so much time here with me already, but it’s still never enough for me. I want all of your clothes in my wardrobe. I want to go to bed and wake up with you every day. I want your name on the door plate. I want you to have a key for this house and come and go as you please. This room here? You are in here so often, but nothing here is yours. There should be your family pictures as well, your memorabilia, your books and your DVDs. I want to you to make this house yours as well. Ours. I’m a selfish old man, Eggsy. I want you here with me all the time. What do you think?”

After all that, Eggsy pretty much only blinks while he processes all that Harry just said. There’s a strange vulnerability on Harry’s face that Eggsy isn’t used to. Harry is always confident in everything he does. Whether he fights with a deadly opponent, argues with Kingsman’s wizard-in-charge, spontaneously whips up a super fragile chocolate soufflé or drives Eggsy mad with his sinfully talented tongue for half the night when they’re actually supposed to sleep, he always radiates self-confidence. But the man in front of him right now is just soft and pure, his heart out in the open. Eggsy wants nothing more than to take and gently cradle it forever.

What he actually does is to turn his eyes away and mumble almost sheepishly: “You know, I don’t really own that much stuff I could decorate this room with. Never really kept much. And also, my things… if I put them here… I don’t think it would fit. I don’t have no leather books. No such fancy…,“ he loosely waves toward the animal figurines on the mantelpiece, ”weird-ass statuettes.” 

He forgets that Harry can see through his weak arguments and harsh words in seconds and recognize it for the shame-induced defense mechanism it is, the man isn’t a spy for nothing after all. “Don’t worry about that, love. Wedgwood‘s Skeaping sculptures are overrated anyway. But I see now that I probably worded my wish the wrong way. This isn’t about the quality of the things you bring with you, or about money or style or fancy possessions. This is about you bringing in a part of your personality. And you’ve got that in spades. Also, you’ll get new things quickly enough, and I’m pretty sure we’ll find things among your belongings that will fit and give this room your personal touch anyway. In the end, what I really want to have here with me is not the material stuff. It’s you. So, Eggsy, I dare to ask again: Would you move in with me?”

His question seems to linger in the room for a second, for two, Eggsy can practically feel it, or maybe it’s the insane happiness that fills him up inside and brings the smile back onto his face. He finally peels himself away from the crumpled cardigan and leaves his cosy nest at Harry’s side as he sits up and looks at the other man. At his feet, JB is stirring and but not waking. The air feels cool on Eggsy’s heated skin as it hits the now uncovered left side of his face. Harry raises his hand, with one finger’s light touch he’s following the pattern of small dents and ridges on Eggsy’s cheek - steadily, as if he’s thirsty for contact and reassurance, yet so carefully, hiding his nervousness and fear of rejection behind familiar gestures, and Eggsy can feel that his finger is trembling ever so slightly. He doesn’t want Harry to worry like this, not when his decision has already been made. There are still questions to consider, and there are still issues to work out, but it all dies on his tongue. He wants this. So Eggsy just turns his head and catches Harry’s wandering finger with his lips. He softly kisses the pad of it before he turns back to the other man, who’s staring at him with a hopeful yet tentative look, and simply says: 

“Yes, Harry. I will.”

 

And so, a few days later, he does. 

Packing doesn’t take long, and for Eggsy it’s the irony of the century that his casual clothes fit into a single suitcase but that he needs three garment bags for his suits now. 

Saying goodbye to his Mum and Daisy takes longer, but eventually he leaves them behind in their new flat in Bayswater which he himself barely lived in, and enters the Kingsman taxi that takes him and his belongings to Harry’s place, where JB is already waiting and jumping around him as if he’s moved in a long time ago and was only waiting for Eggsy to finally follow suit. Harry helps to carry the boxes inside and they put everything into the hallway first. Eggsy is carrying the suitcase in last and catches himself grinning like a fool when he steps inside the house and closes the front door behind him. He sets down the suitcase and looks around and at the boxes near the stairs. This is it. He has arrived, and he’s sharing a place now with the man he loves. It feels right and it feels wonderful, and then Harry comes into the hallway from the dining room and makes it oh so real. Suddenly all the old fears come rushing back, and Eggsy is swallowing hard as his background and his shortcomings are coming back to haunt him like a toxic old friend that refuses to leave him alone. Eggsy doesn’t know what to say, but finds that he doesn’t have to, because Harry is smiling softly and is holding out his hand to him, beckoning him over to the doorway. 

“Come. I want to show you something.”

Eggsy follows Harry through the dining room into the living room and stops dead when he takes as look at the fireplace, where a warm fire is burning brightly. Harry isn’t exactly the holiday decorations kind of guy, but he put up a festive Christmas garland on the marble mantelpiece from which two red stockings are hanging down. The most remarkable thing is what’s standing on the mantelpiece though. The atrocious Wedgwood figurines are gone, instead of them there’s a silver picture frame with a photograph of Eggsy’s Mum and little Daisy. And right beside it, three snow globes, lined up like pearls on a string, the transparent spheres looking almost magical in the flickering light that fills the room. Eggsy cannot believe his eyes. His mind goes back to a very old memory, to himself as a small child, sitting on the floor, shaking the glass orbs repeatedly, fascinated by the floating white snowflakes. His Dad had given them to him that one year when he came home for special occasions, for Eggsy’s birthday, for Easter, for Christmas… The little collection would probably have grown into a big one if there hadn’t been that one night that changed everything, and Eggsy will forever remember watching the snowflakes slowly and silently sink to the ground like his mother’s tears after that strange man had been there. 

It’s been twenty years, it’s Christmas again and Harry’s at his side once more as Eggsy stares at three snow globes and fights down tears because he hadn’t cried back then and will surely not do so now. But his voice is slightly unsteady when he asks:

“Are those… mine?”

Harry nods. “Yes. I had your mother look for them and send them over yesterday. She kept them all these years, and I took the liberty to put them there. I hope you don’t mind that I did that.”

Eggsy doesn’t mind. In fact he’s so touched that his throat closes up, trying desperately to keep the feelings down that threaten to break free like a wild tiger escaping his cage.

“But when you said that you don’t own anything personal that would fit in here, I just knew that it wasn’t true,” Harry continues. “And then I started thinking about you and about us and I remembered these and, well…” 

Harry suddenly sounds unsure of his actions, as if he just realised that he might have dug up unpleasant memories, but Eggsy isn’t having any of that. He turns around and smiles at the other man, and his voice is thick with emotion when he speaks.

“It’s a wonderful idea. Thank you, Harry.”

Harry smiles back at him, clearly relieved, and points to the stocking hanging on the right. “It’s not Christmas yet, but I think you should take a look at this anyway.”

Eggsy doesn’t need to be told twice to check out a present, and it takes only seconds until his eager fingers are diving into the stocking. He’s fishing around but can’t find anything for a while until his fingers encounter something cool and metallic deep down. He grabs it and pulls it out, and then he holds it in his hand – a single key, heavy and shiny. For a second, his mind is blank.

“For your heart?” he jokes then, smirking at Harry.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You stole that months ago already,” Harry deadpans, and it would have been a cheesy comment had someone else made that remark, but coming from him it sounds like a believable fact.  
“No. For the front door." His eyes are full of warmth when he looks at Eggsy. "Welcome home and Merry Christmas, love.”

Eggsy stares at the key, cradles it in his hand, the metal already warming in his palm. It’s utterly perfect, all of it is, the day, the moment, this place. 

They’ve come full circle. He’ll not be leaving tonight, he’ll stay here, in this house, with Harry. It’s home now. It’s theirs now, together.  
‘Merry Christmas indeed,’ he thinks, and closes his fingers tightly around the key with a fond smile.

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mostly at night, so there might be typos. Let me know if you find any so that I can correct them. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr under [Arlessiar](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/arlessiar) as well.


End file.
